Sangre de Cristo Mountains

 

One of my goals for last year was to work a little harder on my landscape photography, especially during our trip to Colorado. Looking through my photos makes me even more aware how important it is to use the early morning hours or, like with this picture, shoot during the time around sunset and even after sunset.

The shot was made during our stay at Great Sand Dunes National Park, just at the southern park boundaries along a county road. The sun was still up but hidden behind a cloud and it just kissed the 14,000 feet tall peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The Rabbitbrush got enough light to make it stand out from the desert and provided a nice foreground for this scene that lasted only a couple minutes.

Recharging the batteries

 

We wish all of our family and friends here in the US a Happy Thanksgiving! Joan and I went again to Door County, the peninsula surrounded by Lake Michigan and the Green Bay in northeast Wisconsin. We try to ”recharge our batteries” by relaxing in a cabin, eating good food, and doing some hiking and photography.

After our arrival last night we went down to the lake shore in Baileys Harbor and watched for a few minutes how the magic of colors unfolded during sunset. Nothing spectacular but still worth a click…

Autumn in Wisconsin

 

The forecast for the weekend promised warm and dry weather, so we decided to pack the tent, throw the kayaks on top of the car, and go camping in Gov. Dodge State Park over in Wisconsin. The majority of the leaves is on the ground but little patches of yellow, red, and orange are still part of the landscape here in the Midwest.

Saturday morning thick fog covered Twin Lake Valley below the campground and every valley around. Pretty soon the fog lifted and left us with a clear blue sky for the rest of the day and into Sunday morning.

The water is a little chilly already but who says you have to go swimming? Joan and I paddled both days and as you can see our little dog Cooper didn’t mind it either. One of the reasons we like this state park so much is the variety of activities you can enjoy in and around this area. After yesterday’s paddle tour we went on a hike for a few hours and visited some old spring houses, Stevens Falls, and the Stevens homestead, the old farm of this pioneering family. Their life is described and documented on interpretive signs along a trail. Why do I mention this? Some of the photographs displayed on signs were made by a family member way back in the old days. Although none of the farm buildings exists anymore, except for the foundations, the photos of the old farm give us today, over 100 years later, a pretty good impression how this farm has grown and supported the life of this family. Photography at work! ;-)

Bare trees are hardly photogenic but if the light hits them just right, you can still make a photo that may have an impact on the viewer and tells the story about autumn. I tried this minutes before sunset and from the same location, a rocky bluff above the valley, as during the fog in the morning. The white stems of the trees stand out and even if the eye goes to the long shadows of the shrubs in the foreground for a few seconds, it will go back to the sunlit bare trees.

Colorado landscapes: Black Canyon of the Gunnison

 

I introduce our next destination in Colorado with some lines that I found in the National Park brochure.

“Some are longer, some are deeper, some are narrower, and a few have walls as steep, but no other canyon in North America combines the depth, narrowness, sheerness, and somber countenance of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison”,     Wallace Hansen, Geologist

It is indeed an awesome canyon, carved by the Gunnison River. The river loses more elevation within the 48 miles of the Black Canyon than the 1,500-mile Mississippi River from Minnesota to New Orleans.  The gorge is over 800 meters deep and very little sunlight reaches the bottom. The only things that give a sense of scale in my first image are the border stones of the view point on the other side of the canyon, which are about a kilometer away (5/8 of a mile).

Yes, someone may find a little light in every little crack in these rocks by employing multiple exposures and merging them to a High Dynamic Range photo. I personally prefer to expose strictly for the highlights and use the shadows as an element in the composition of my photo. But that is just me…:-)   The setting sun reveals the structure of these step walls and I consider us very lucky to have such great light the first evening after our arrival in the National Park. More to come...

Colorado landscapes: Mesa Verde - Beyond the historical importance

 

I think I have not recognized Mesa Verde beyond the fact of its historical importance in my last couple blog posts. I have talked about harsh light during the day, but as soon the sun is near the horizon it is not so difficult to reveal the beauty of this landscape.

If I have the camera on a tripod and all time in the world at my hands, I shoot more than one image of a scene that unfolds in front of me. Most of the photos that evening were much more zoomed in. I just applied the “less is more rule” because my subject was the sunlit rocks. While writing this post, and at the same time making my choice for the image that will be published with it, I recognized that none of the closer views, without the mountains in the background, tells the story about the location of Mesa Verde to those folks that have never been here. So here is my choice for today…

Colorado landscapes: Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace

 

I grew up in an over 1000 years old city in Germany. My home town Bautzen was mentioned on a piece of paper for the first time in 1002. Many of the oldest buildings and towers are way over 500 years old. I realized it is not that old  if you look at Mesa Verde.  ;-)

Most of the cliff dwellings were built from the late 1190s to late 1270s. However, by about 1300 Mesa Verde was deserted. The reasons for the migration of the Ancestral Pueblo people are unclear and several theories offer reasons for their migration (source: Mesa Verde NP brochure). It is just great that these very old structures still exist, that they are preserved, and that they are protected for future generations.

We had to be patient to make some images of Cliff Palace, one of the community centers with about 150 rooms. We did not like the light during the day and so we came back to the overlook across the canyon in the evening. The light was gorgeous at about 6:45PM. I bracketed five shots for each image, each shot one f-stop apart. For this photo I finally took the 3 shots on the darker side and merged them in Photoshop into one 32-bit file. Bringing the 32-bit tiff-file back into Adobe Lightroom gives you a much wider range to work with on highlights and shadows. I also tried to merge five shots into an HDR image and tone mapped it, but I do not like this kind of a look, not even with a very subtle tone mapping applied. So, what you see here is just a “pseudo-HDR” but I like it so much better. I have no problem to imagine that the sunset over 800 years ago was exactly the same, except Cliff Palace was probably busier at this time of the day...

Chicago...night, light, and colors

 

It was quiet here again in the blog during the last week. I just returned from GRAPH EXPO, the annual trade show of the graphic industry at the McCormick Place in Chicago. I had plans to post some images during this week but due to a “pilot error” the cable that connects the camera with my notebook was not in my photo bag and so I wasn’t able to upload any photos… :-?

Our company stayed at the Hyatt Hotel next to the McCormick Center and it paid back to ask for a high floor during my check-in. There isn’t much time for any private life during a trade show but I did not waste the late night and early morning hours because of the great view to the Chicago skyline from my room...

Unlike in many airplanes the hotel window was relatively clean and by holding the lens very close to the glass the reflections were almost eliminated. Early Sunday morning the fog from Lake Michigan was creeping into the city. Hours before the Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field the first light of the day was reflected in the glass of the stadium. The Ferris wheel on Navy Pier stuck out of the fog in the background during the blue hour…, what a great way to start the first day of the trade show…

Clouds poured in on Monday and the top of Sears Tower on the left was hidden. The city’s light was reflected from above and made for a spectacular night scene.

Wednesday morning the first rays of the sun touched the skyline and revealed the colors and pronounced the lines of Chicago’s wonderful architecture.

Colorado landscapes: Great Sand Dunes - being on top..., priceless!

 

You can run around with your camera all day long in Great Sand Dunes National Park but nothing, and I mean nothing, beats the experience of being up on top of the dunes when the sun creeps over the ridge of the Sangre de Christo Mountains in the morning. It is easy to forget to push the shutter release button because of the spectacular light on the dunes that unfolds right in front of you. It takes about an hour to hike and climb up the 700 feet from the valley bottom to the top of the first ridge and the altitude of about 2,700m (~8,730 ft) may put you out of breath at times, but the rewards for this endeavor are priceless.

Colorado landscapes: Great Sand Dunes - Medano Creek

 

Water plays an essential role for the life in and around the Great Sand Dunes. The dunefield is edged by two creeks. Subsurface flow from these streams feeds wetlands that are habitat for an amazing variety of life in the midst of a sandy desert. (source: National Park brochure) Medano Creek between the Sangre de Christo Mountains and the dunes had been dry during the summer, according to an internet source, but at our arrival, shortly after some rain in the area, the creek had water again flowing down the valley. The shallow stream is a nice place to chill out during a hot day and especially the kids enjoyed playing in this big “sand box”.

One evening some overcast didn’t look very promising for good light on the dunes but I went out anyway for a little hike with our dog Cooper. You never know for sure how things may develop in nature and that’s why I had the tripod and camera over my shoulder. Suddenly the magic unfolded. The setting sun, already hidden by the sand dunes, appeared from behind the clouds and revealed some spectacular colors. The light bounced back from the clouds and got reflected by Medano Creek. And there was the photo, with the creek as my subject!

Colorado landscapes: Great Sand Dunes

 

We tried to reach our first destination, the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, still before dark. We were running already late after the second day of travel, but while approaching the National Park the low sun and the dramatic clouds made for such a great vista that we had to stop for some photos. I rather pitch up the tent in the dark than missing an opportunity like that ;-) .

These huge dunes are North America’s tallest and they are nestled against the Sangre de Christo Mountains. From our campsite at Pinyon Flats, at an altitude of about 2500 m (~8200 ft), we had a great view to the dunes just in front of us. The highest peaks of the dunes are about 230 m (755 ft) above the surrounding flats. We spent three days in this area and the best times for photography are definitely the early mornings and late evenings.

This couple hiked down from the dunes one morning (tent camping in the dunes is allowed with a permit) and I really like the shot because it gives a sense of scale. The flowers and grass tell the story about the life in the dunes and that they are not just “a pile of sand” but part of a natural system with high mountains, strong winds, streams, and wetlands. There is more to come, so please stay tuned…